If the Great Spirit, Ladjia Altjerra Knaninja, is gracious, the tap-root of the yam will be sent deep down into the earth near the Jay River and from there spread its laterals all over the country to supply the needs of the tribe.
When some of the most sacred ceremonies are performed, the oldest “relatives” of the presiding Knaninja often construct a coloured drawing upon the consecrated ground, whose purpose is similar to that of the “totem” stick above described. The drawing is executed in coloured down, both vegetable and bird. A space of suitable size, often measuring many feet in length, is cleared of grass and stones, and sprinkled with water, when it is ready to receive the down. In the case of, say, the “Ladjia Tjuringa,” the design takes the form of a number of concentric circles alternately red and white, from the outermost of which six equally spaced groups of red and white lines stand out radially. The enclosing border of the design consists entirely of white down. Vide [Plate XXXVII].
Once constructed, this drawing, which is known as “Etominja,” is zealously guarded by one of the old men. If, peradventure, an unauthorized person happens upon the sanctified place, he is killed and buried immediately beneath the spot occupied by the design; thereupon the ground is smoothed again and the Etominja re-constructed. Nobody in camp ever hears what became of the person, and should any relative track him in the direction of the area known to be tabooed, he is horror-stricken and runs away.
While the old men are re-constructing the Etominja, they sing to the Knaninja as follows:
“Yedimidimi
Dakarai pa ma taka,
Pa mitu min jai, jin tarai,
Ja ra nai malgada, ja ranai.”
The next, and probably the most important, group of religious ceremonies is that dealing with Sex-Worship. For years past peculiarly shaped stones have been found in caves and among the possessions of the Australian aborigines whose shape was strikingly suggestive of a phallus, but hitherto no actual phallic ceremonies have been observed. It was my good fortune to witness such among the Aluridja, Arunndta, Dieri, and Cambridge Gulf tribes. From enquiries made of the old men, it appears that in former days this form of worship was practised considerably more than it is nowadays. New stone phallus are rarely made by the present tribes; those in their possession have generally been inherited from previous generations. The old men have the phallus in their keeping, and they are very loth to either produce or part with them.
The natives of the King Sound district in the north-west believe the origin of the phallus to be as follows: In the early times a scourge was raging among their forefathers, from the effects of which many were daily dying, when a hairy man and his mate, a woman of ordinary human form, came to earth from above. The evil was due to the exhalation of poisonous breath from the gaping jaws of a green monster resembling a crocodile. The stranger relieved the sufferers from the awful curse by showing them how to perform an operation upon their person which taught them to endure pain and protected them against future ravages of the pestilence. This great and benevolent stranger then took his departure, but left his name to designate the surgical operation which to the present day is performed upon the male members of the tribe; the name, strange though it may seem, is “Elaija”; and it is known, at any rate, as far east as Port George IV. But the tribe had become so weak through the terrible havoc the disease had wrought that the old men called him back and entreated him to stay. Elaija, however, took from a dillybag his female companion was carrying, a stone carved after the shape of a mutilated member, which he gave the name of “Kadabba.” When the old men gazed upon this object, they took fright and appealed to Elaija, but the good fellow had vanished. The stone has remained with the tribe ever since, and through the divine property Elaija endowed it with, their threatened extinction was eluded. Moreover, they continued to practise the operation on all young men because it made their members like the Kadabba of Elaija, which they knew had the power of multiplying their kind. And so the Kadabba became a sacred object whose procreative power they have learned to worship, thinking that by such observance they would augment their own capacities of sex. Vide [Fig. 7].